


pursuing tomorrow

by Zozoa



Category: Ebon Light (Visual Novel)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Missing Scene, Spoilers, Supportive Haron, a pessimist learns to be positive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zozoa/pseuds/Zozoa
Summary: The Cuthintal screams and screams and screams, and Alenca has to find the way to silence the ire and the mania.Haron might have an idea.
Relationships: Alenca Goffil | Main Character/Haron Milirose
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	pursuing tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Because having an ever-angry voice in your head (after a year? of will die won't die, too!) is probably not that healthy or easy to deal with and I wanted to dwell juuuust a bit on that part of the story.

Alenca makes her decision because she is, primarily, exhausted.

“I'm not staying; I'm leaving,” she says, her voice far steadier than it has any right to be. Feeling rather wasted and empty would do that to one, she guesses, the embers within that have burnt throughout all now turned cold and hard in her stomach. Behind her, Haron sighs and steps closer, only betrayed by the wan of his expression and the shake of his hands. Then: “I’m not killing him either,” she adds, mostly to the voice in her head.

Calipoa and Haron stare, momentarily confused. The Cuthintal—Cutinah, _whoever_ —screams bloody murder on her mind. The Being stares on, impassive, and might have said something or other about hubris, regrets and the doom of Caleare or somesuch. Alenca doesn’t care. She’s already walking away and into the light.

It doesn’t end there. The Cuthintal continues screaming.

. . .

They go back to The Bastion in silence—or what Alenca’d consider silence if not for the cries of anger in her head.

 **“COWARD! Go back, you ungrateful sniveling _coward_ , go back and KILL HIM!” **it shrieks, and she winces.

Once in the ship, Calipoa quietly commands three of her scouts to remain behind watching over the now closed-off cave. They sail at evening.

“We’ll be back for them,” she explains. “Axsix and Duliae will want to conduct a more… thorough research. Better prepared, we’ll discover more.”

She smiles, even clasps her hand on Alenca’s shoulder, but the moment of hesitation in-between is telling enough. Alenca says ‘sure’ equally confident and watches the commander go as Haron takes his position besides her.

“It’ll be fine,” he says. _You’ll be fine_ , he doesn’t say. They both know that’s an assurance he can’t make and he’s already sworn to not lie to her. “We know now what to face; it’ll be fine.”

 **“You’ll _pay_ ,” **the Cuthintal proclaims. **“You will not know peace. You’ll _succumb_ , foolish girl.”**

. . .

The first night is a nightmare.

When asleep, Alenca dreams of a purple cloud gobbling her up—her feet dance to a beat she doesn’t hear and her hands grasp at things she doesn’t see, the pain searing but unable to quench it, her body lost to the purple and the purple now her mind.

When awake, her voice is drowned in the sea of screeching and accusations, a relentless chant of _‘coward, coward, coward!’_ echoing in the stillness of The Bastion at night. Her eyes rarely if ever find respite. Turns out, it’s nigh impossible to rest when a voice shrills damnations and treachery directly into her skull.

Haron finds her at daybreak, hunched over the railing of the ship.

“Never thought I’d suffer from seasickness,” Alenca says listlessly. His hand rests on her back, the point of contact a source of solidity against the dizziness. “When I dreamt of leaving Edric always thought of dangers wrought by others. Seasickness, though?”

“Too mundane?” he asks, bestowing her a cheeky smirk and a soft rub on her tense shoulders. “It happens. Lucky you, there’re remedies for that.”

“Lucky me,” she drawls to which Haron chuckles.

The boat shifts, Alenca clenches her hands around the railing when another spell hits her. She holds the content of her stomach inside, deciding in its place to look at Haron who, under a coming dawn, looks as if craved from salt crystals and coal: a monochrome vision against the oranges of a new day. He’d look beautiful if not for the harsh line of his mouth and sunken of his cheeks.

If Haron looks like that—wary and worried out of concern for her—, Alenca wonders, how does _she_ look.

“When we were in the cave,” he begins, “you said you weren’t killing that being.”

Calipoa and Haron have left her to rest yesterday, the latter hovering until she reached her bed, but they hadn’t pressed for questions. They could wait until tomorrow for answers they’ve assured her. Tomorrow’s arrived, still, and so, she answers:

“It— _Him_ ,” Alenca corrects herself. She’s no letting the Cutinah get away with more; she’s not allowing _him_ to be _more_ and _less_ than she can imagine and let him lord over her uncertainty. “He offered a deal: kill the being and he’d leave me mostly in peace.”

Haron stills. Alenca expects disbelief, or even vexation, only to find curiosity in its place.

“And you didn’t take it,” he states.

“No.”

She smiles. If Haron notices the waver of her lips, he doesn’t comment. He smiles too, instead.

“Why?” he asks. Of course he would

Alenca shrugs. “Tired, I guess, of being herded and commanded. They offered deals but only under their conditions, and they weren’t willing to tell me further unless I agreed. I thought ‘ _well, this isn’t fair’_ and I wasn’t keen to either so I just…” She pauses. Her lips thin into a white line and Alenca finds she can’t quite look at him. “Awful time to be rebellious,” she decides to settle on. “Or a coward,” she adds more hesitantly.

Haron grasps her firmly, makes sure she looks at him. He shakes his head.

“Not a coward, remember?” His voice is fond and his eyes even more so. The courage to face adversity despite the paralyzing fear, he’d said once, and that’s a comfort she can take. Praise’s an easy drug to take. Easier than belittling. “A coward wouldn’t have done half of what you have.”

In her mind: **“A coward _and_ a fool!” **

Alenca sighs, lowers her forehead against the damp wood of the railing.

Haron shifts even closer, head lowering to her level while one arm sneaks around her midriff into a side-embrace. “Still?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Take heart, madralee,” he says, the pads of his fingers sneaking under her shirt in soothing circles. “There’s still more to discover, of course, but you got answers you didn’t before. Every day you’ll learn more, and you’ll learn how to control it.”

Alenca rolls her eyes. “How do you silence your own mind?”

“Not your mind.”

“But it’s _in_ me.”

**“I’m in you as much as you’re in me. You won’t ever get rid of me.”**

“It’s not _you_ ,” Haron says quickly. “He can’t take control unless he fights first, and if he tries, you can seize him.”

**“I’ll make sure you _regret_ ever finding me unless you go back and kill that coward right _now_.”**

Alenca bites back the retort, shakes her heads, decides to focus on Haron’s furrowed brow and firm eyes and set mouth. Yelling, she’s discovered, doesn’t help. It emboldens the voice instead.

“And if he does? If I don’t?” she asks at last.

 **“Weak,”** the voice hisses. **“An idiot weakling.”**

At this, Haron doubts. The hands on her back skips and halts. Dark eyes search her, unblinking. His attention, at times overwhelming, zeroes in on her and Alenca can’t but squirm.

“You will,” he says easily. “Eventually, you will.”

His expression softens at her snort. She tries to level her with her best unamused glare when his fingers have resumed their careful caresses. She fails and so, instead, she leans into his touch.

It’s nice, Alenca thinks, to have someone unconditionally believe in her when she won’t herself. Foolish, perhaps, but nice. That’s an assurance she’s willing to take if only to face another day of angry voices in her head.

“Let’s hope you’re right, then.”

**“Fool.”**

. . .

The second and third night don’t fare better. Her only moments of shuteye come from small naps when the silence falls only to suddenly awake, breathing labored and eyes wild, to her guest painting in excruciating detail all the ways in which he’ll destroy her. The third time her sudden yelps wake Calipoa, Alenca hangs her head in defeat before heading to the door.

“Another harsh night, I see,” Calipoa mumbles half-asleep. “Quite the annoying friend you got.”

“And quite the loud one too,” Alenca adds.

Calipoa sends a quite-not-so-poignant glare veiled by drowsiness. “Don’t let him wear you down to be susceptible. Go back to sleep.”

“I won’t find rest,” she answers. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t either.”

The door clicks behind her. Beyond the room, Alenca is met with the inscrutable darkness of the already dark halls of The Bastion for her human eyes.

 **“Still caring for these elves?”** The Cuthintal sounds closed off yet resonant, booming in the solitude of the night. **“When they kidnapped you? Used you? Lied to you? Don’t you tire of kowtowing to them like a good little girl?”**

Alenca wades her way through the hall, guided by nothing but memory and her hand on the wall. “They’ve given more reasons to listen to them than you ever did.”

 **“Didn’t they ignore your pleas to return home?”** the voice growls back. **“Tell, do you trust them, trust them enough to believe they won’t demand everything out of you now that they’ll _know_?”**

“My mistrust shouldn’t lead to _idiocy_ and disregard help given nor invest on petty retaliation,” she hisses back under her breath. “Mistrusting isn’t isolating myself from others.”

**“Yet you ignored me, _me_ , you fool! Disregarded _my_ help and my deal only so you could keep your _conscience_ —"**

“Be grateful,” she snarls, “I didn’t listen to that Being either when perhaps I should have, you fester—!”

“Alenca?”

In the corner where the black is even blacker, a figure moves. Alenca knows it to be Haron even before he approaches so close she can discern his shape.

“Where are you going?” he asks, tone even.

“I-I…” The stutter is unbecoming of her, but her last sentence has been damning—which he most likely has heard—and grimaces before continuing. “I wanted a bit of air.”

Alenca watches as his shadow nods. She wishes there were enough light to see his face properly. She palms her way to his hand and squeezes tight in the hopes that alone will tell him enough when she finds herself uncharacteristically short of words. As Haron squeezes back and then, as is his wont, grabs her other hand, she knows he understands.

“Do you want to talk?”

“Really?” she scoffs. “Talking and listening is all I’ve been doing with my little friend here.”

Haron shifts near. Nearer. “I meant to the point you only hear _my_ voice and not his,” he says, and she can easily imagine his little smirk. “When I can’t do nothing about my worries, I like to distract myself with more positive matters. It helps me; it may help you too.”

“Ah, so that’s your little secret to seem so flippant,” Alenca teases. She skims her thumb over his palm. The voice is gone, for now, and she bits her lip in what’ll come once he wakes. “I guess it could work,” she says warily. She’s always been more of a worrier than anything, but trying the new hasn’t ever been a problem either. She would rather, she decides, hear Haron’s voice than the Cuthintal’s anyway. “Won’t it steal much of your time, though? We don’t want Calipoa hunting you down for skiving off, do we now.”

Alenca doesn’t need to see him to know his face is painted with a broad smile when he answers, “For you, madralee? All my time is yours!”

She stares—tries to in the dark anyway. She guesses he stares back.

“I _do_ have time,” Haron says at last, put off. “Despite what many, or you, may think I can be responsible.”

“I know,” Alenca answers. She does. She’s learnt despite herself. Haron might be fickle and thoughtlessly sanguine, but so he far has yet to let her down. She gifts him a smile she hopes his elf eyes will allow to see. “Not here though. I’d rather watch you if we’re to chat.”

“Watch me? Why, madralee, I’m flattered.”

Alenca snorts and follows him up to the deck where the moon is full enough she can now, at least, see him somewhat.

They talk.

Or, rather, Haron talks.

He’s good at it too. He starts with little stories from Gha'alia: its most hidden corners and most interesting shops, the people to look for and the ones to avoid. Alenca finds her mind wandering away once the Cuthintal stirs and the dizziness takes, only to be pulled back into focus when Haron dwells into the ins and outs of Mask training and housing and life in Gha'alia—the ordinary kind, not her own one-word-away-from-death experience.

Alenca hums, and nods, and even dares to make all the questions that hasn’t occurred her being too focused keeping herself alive, all which Haron readily answers.

(“I don’t think Mask training was thought with a human in mind,” she drawls when Haron lists all the physical prerequisites. “Specially a human not particularly suited to fighting.”

“Axsix wouldn’t have offered the position if he didn’t believe you capable,” Haron shrugs. “He most likely thought to employ you as a diplomat with our human partners regardless.”

“Meaning spying.”

“Well, madralee, then you’ll easily excel with your wits and sharp tongue.”

“My tongue?” She arches a brow, knowing where this leads to. “What do _you_ know about my abilities with the tongue?”

He smirks and smirks and looks utterly brazen. “Less than I’d like to know.”

“Shameless,” she retorts, but her fond expression might have betrayed her.

 **“Disgusting,”** the voice grumbles.)

In her next night, Alenca dreams of Vanya. She also dreams purple—an ever-present mist that shallows the world whole until it’s a sea of nothing and purple and screaming and screaming and screaming.

That night, Alenca’s the one who talks.

“I wonder what Vanya would say if she knew.” She twines his fingers between hers. Haron’s been quiet, unusual as it’s of him, listening as she discloses about her dreams and her doubts and then some. Gratefulness creeps into her bones and settles at her core. “She wouldn’t be happy for sure, might even disbelief me, that I know. Would doubt where my self-preservation’s gone off to and what possessed me to play nice with moony kidnapper elves—” Haron scoffs at that. ”—but beyond that…” Alenca sighs. “Sometime I don’t believe myself so it’s hard to imagine.”

“Ask her once you go meet her yourself,” he recommends at the end, gripping her hand tight.

Alenca pauses, stares at Haron’s intent gaze. She manages to nod when her heartbeat speeds at the prospect.

“I’d like that,” she agrees, letting her face crumbed into wistfulness.

Haron leans in close and gifts her his most impish smile. “And in the meantime, I also could meet that strong-willed no-nonsense aunt, maybe?”

“Strong-willed?” Alenca raises one brow in askance. “You speak as if you already knew her.”

“I know you, and you’re here despite everything,” he says, waving a hand at all of her.

“I could’ve gotten my will from my parents.” She closes the remaining distance slyly. “Considered that?”

Haron cocks his head to the side. “Did you?”

“No,” Alenca sighs, leaning back. She avoids his gaze, shrugging nonchalantly. “They loved me, I remember, good teachers too—all the stories and tricks I learnt from them— though not particularly strong willed, no.”

**“Ah, were they cowards also, perhaps? The source of your foolishness.”**

Something in her expression might have given her away because Haron quickly tries to snap her attention back to him.

“Speaking of your parents, what about them?”

Alenca purses her lips. It’s an invitation—a tempting one at that. Pouring about her parents is something she hasn’t done since she was twelve, crying about her gone-never-to-be-back despondent father while Vanya tried to make her stand tall. Her aunt never liked dwelling in the past, not even for her own brother, for Edric’s not a forgiving place for those who aren’t willing to work even in the midst of their grief. Her father hadn’t understood that. Alenca has.

Still, she shakes her head. Too soon, a part of her thinks while the more eager side says:

“Not today but maybe tomorrow.”

**“Certainly never.”**

Haron frowns, looking very much a petulant child. Ultimately, however, his brow lights and he gives his best smirk that signals he’ll, eventually, get what he wants anyway so why worry now. He promised he’d discover everything there was to know of her not so long ago, and Alenca wasn’t to doubt him on that—that didn’t mean she’d make it fast or easy though.

And, well—Alenca still remembers _his_ closed off expression all those months ago in Lonre’s party when she’s asked the simple of question of: ‘do you trust your father?’ to which he hadn’t answered, not truthfully anyway. He’s hardly the only one of the two eager to untap what they hide and peek under what laid underneath.

It’s something to look forward to in any case.

Whatever the Cutinah might proclaim, there is a future to be sought for her.

**“There won’t be one for you. I won’t let you have it.”**

Alenca closes her eyes, inhales deep in and blurts instead, “I don’t think Vanya will like you.”

“Will?” Haron asks, the corners of his mouth pulling into a grin.

 **“Will!”** the Cuthintal shrills. **“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself now, fool?”**

“Will,” Alenca affirms.

Haron stares, transfixed, before slowly pulling her hand to his lips. He kisses her knuckles and says with mischief and tenderness alight in his eyes: “But, madralee, she hasn’t met someone like me yet, has she?”

Alenca senses her breath hitch. Her mind goes numb, the Cuthinah’s anger sometimes devastating now nothing but background buzz.

“No, Edric has no one quite like you,” she says voice gone soft, dipping in for a quick kiss that makes Haron burrow into her so close Alenca wonders it might be indecent. And then, because she can see his arrogance getting the better of his expression, adds, “Unlucky you, Vanya isn’t keen on neither new nor different.”

Haron pouts, sniffs high in a half-hearted, half-serious show of wounded pride.

The Cuthintal, however, yells and yells and yells. 

It'll come to end, Alenca knows, sooner or later—someday between today and tomorrow—so she laughs and laughs and laughs to drown it all at present.

**Author's Note:**

> If this fic seems kinda unfinished it's because it sort of is. It was supposed to be go a bit further and shove a couple of headcanons I have but I lost steam midway through and yet didn't have the heart to leave it to rot in my computer or delete it. So, uh, here it is! 
> 
> If I ever find the will to live--I mean, to finish this, I'll post a second part. For now though I'll leave it as completed.


End file.
